Renegade Lilly
by LadyMononoke756
Summary: Once upon a time the White Lilly of Konoha slaughtered her entire family in violent rage to avenge her cousin's murder. Now she lives somewhere on the edge of Suna with another missing nin. Her eyes are white, his eyes are red, opposites attract.
1. Loss and Abscond

**Author Note: Yup, I should be working on my other stories right now but I couldn't help it so here we go. One shot unless I either get unreasonably inspired and feel compelled to write it down and share it with the world or someone asks for more. **

**Disclaimer: Naruto, blah blah blah, me, blah blah blah, ****Masashi Kishimoto.**

My name is Hyuuga Hanabi, ex ANBU captain and A-class missing nin—better known as the Renegade Lilly. I'm seventeen, I'm tired of having people tell my story and I'm sick of hearing it. What gives anybody any right to tell my story for me? Not one of those parasites in that damned Kage-be-cursed village ever knew me. Not my father, my sister, my teammates, my subordinates, my teachers or my family. My "family"—the only family I ever had was Neji. And _they_ killed him for trying to save me, so I killed _them_. And now there really is no family.

I gave his ashes to Tenten the next morning but his headband I keep, even if the symbol on it means next to nothing to me.

Once upon a time things were better than this. They'll tell you there was an ambitious little girl named Hyuuga Hanabi who hated her sister and murdered her family. She did it for the challenge, because she was gifted and bored, she was a genius, she never failed and she could finish B ranked missions in a day. She became ANBU captain at thirteen and wore a blank white Hunter mask never spotted with a drop of blood, so she became known as the White Lilly. Then one day her cousin died and she killed her family. Now she lives somewhere on the edge of Sunagakure out of wedlock with S-class missing nin Uchiha Itachi quietly plotting the demise of Konohagakure. Presently, she is known as the Renegade Lilly.

"One day her cousin died..."? "She was a genius"? "Somewhere on the edge… with Uchiha Itachi…plotting the demise of Konohagakure," do you really believe that? If I wanted too, I could have wasted that pathetic city a long time ago. Not because I'm a genius, but because I have the ability and the right to do so if I want to. They deserve it for all the hell they served. Sasuke left, Tenten left, Kurenai left, Anko left and Shino left, everyone has their own sob story—Neji was slaughtered. There is no one left in that stupid city that I even vaguely respect.

And then they say "out of wedlock", like it's something I should be ashamed of. How would they even know—and where the heck are we suppose to register our civil union? For the record, we did get married by a roving monk who actually came from that city, Konohagakure. He told us he felt sorry for us and said he'd never tell anyone; I know he was more scared than sympathetic but who wouldn't be? At least he wanted to perform the ceremony for us. We thanked him as he left and sent him safely, with our blessing, on his way—two weeks later we found his body on the road en route to Kirigakure, carved up by bandits. We cremated his body, burned incense and representations; then Itachi scattered his ashes while I tracked and exterminated the bandits.

But seriously, let's start at the beginning. I am not a genius. Neji was a genius, but unfortunately so was my father. I am of average talent. The only reason I got anywhere near genius level was because I trained relentlessly and studied with geniuses—so perhaps all the time I spent with them taught me to think like them.

At any rate, what natural talent I had didn't save me for long. I graduated academy in a year and went on to become an ANBU Hunter nin, then ANBU captain. That's when my family thought I had gained enough influence to become a liability. The fact that I wasn't entirely scared, submissive or under their direct control worried them and the Hokage; they all remembered an episode like this not to long ago that ended with a very dangerous S-class missing nin. So they decided they would give me the seal, but Neji was not about to let all the work he had put into me to make me heir go to waste just so he could be ruled by some two-faced wench like Hinata.

He had a plan. Father discovered it but still Neji fought for me, because securing my freedom would be the same as ensuring his. He wanted to marry Tenten and have their children grow up free. He fought and he was slaughtered. Slowly and painfully, by activating the seal, it dragged on for hours and everybody was made to watch as an example of what happened to rebels against the main house. He looked at me and gave me look that begged me to kill him. I couldn't do it—so he writhed in pain for another hour before he finally died in my arms. I killed everybody.

That isn't saying much, Konohagakure had just finished a war with Iwagakure, Tonbogakure and Kumogakure, so guess who was sacrificed to save the precious main house. That's right; Neji was one of only six branch house members left and of the others: one was a coward and the other four were lapdogs of the main house. I had no reservations about killing anybody.

Afterwards, I carefully washed and prepared Neji's body, then said my prayers and cremated him; I left the others to rot. I bottled his ashes and put them in a pretty ceramic jar meant for a main house funeral, then delivered them to Tenten in the morning along with the Will and Last Letter which Neji had the foresight to write. By ten a.m. the smell of rotting corpses was beginning to spill over the outer edges of the Hyuuga compound so I went to ANBU head quarters and decided to save someone the paperwork of declaring me a missing nin. I discreetly filled out and filed the correct forms then gathered the rest of the things I would want from my office and left Konohagakure. I sprinted a safe distance to edge of the Rice country so I was outside their jurisdiction and then watched the pandemonium erupt in Konoha with my Byakugan.

**Author Note: press the pretty purple review button please** 


	2. Premeditations

**Author Note: I warned you I might write more so here we go, I hope you like it—for the disclaimer please see chapter one. **

When the bodies were found and the word spread across the village and back to the Hokage, the twelve guardsmen and the Anbu hunter division were assembled in seconds. No matter how quickly I had cut them down, the Hyuuga had still been the strongest shinobi in the leaf—a family of geniuses, and legendary shinobi. My family had traditionally made up the bulk of the commanding Anbu positions and higher jonin ranks in addition the being strategists and valuable spies—Konoha was vulnerable without them.

Even before the Anbu and guardsmen were assembled I was already noted as conspicuously absent; as the captain it had been a duty of mine to stay informed, perceive when the Hokage would call us and arrive at least a few seconds early. I was presumed missing in action by the presiding Anbu (my second in command), as they didn't find my body in the mess.

Foolish.

Did they really think I wouldn't leave? I'd spent years in unquestioning service to the village but that didn't stop them from demanding the seal be branded on me. A brand this late in life would rob me of none of my skill but all my memories—how convenient it would have been for them to have me as an unthinking weapon. I'd spent my life as servant to the village and to my family; did anyone in their right mind really believe I would end it all just as quietly? I'd been swallowing my own bitterness for too many years and eventually, everyone has a point where they just have to combust. After all, my namesake is made to explode.

The initial suspect was Kumogakure since they were never too discreet about wanting the Byakugan for themselves or having all its users dead—but of course they didn't have the kind of power to launch an attack just after recovering from such a major war. The war had cost them many live and therefore many good nin, which resulted in a loss of the stealth and foresight needed to execute a flawless infiltration. They also didn't have an S-class nin at their disposal anymore and I, much less the whole clan, wouldn't have been killed by any less. So the discussion went on and the topic inevitably drifted back to me—the kage had too much faith in family's control over me--'Hanabi couldn't have done it, I had already asked them to put the seal on her.' I was going to kill that ass and make him pay—and just like that I decided I was definitely going to assassinate the Hokage.

A Nara finally came to the conclusion that I had either been drugged while sleeping and then kidnapped(the fact that I didn't immediately kill the intruder in my sleep was attributed to fatigue from the sealing ceremony) or killed by an earth jutsu and genjutsu combination unit of A-class nin who had taken my body for dissection of the Byakugan and study. The decided to investigate for another two weeks and then declare war on Kumogakure by default if nothing new was found.

Sometime later I pressed my fingers over my closed eyelids and deactivated Byakugan by withdrawing chakra through my fingers—a simple touch. It was necessity to deactivate this way when watching over such long distances due to the volume of chakra I had to pour into my eyes to achieve it, I've since developed better control.

If Konoha was going to start another war with Kumo because the Hokage was jumping to conclusions I supposed I had better eventually stop them. When I killed people I killed them for a reason. Assassinating the Hokage to save the lives of innocent soldiers and civilians sounded like a noble enough cover for my personal conviction and vendetta that he was an ass. I sat back on my perch and leaned back against the tree. My family was legendary, a family of geniuses—they fought accordingly and I was tired, I had won just barely. But before I drifted off to sleep I had to wonder; how had the great Hyuuga clan ever been defeated by an unwanted second born bastard daughter like me?

**XXX**

**Author Note: Ooooh, cliff hanger. Hanabi's a bastard? Was it her father or her mother that cheated? Who were her real parents? What other clan is she from? All this and more will be answered eventually! If you'd like to read more in the near future, please review for me ******


	3. Veneer Princess

**Author Note: Sorry it took a while, you should still be happy though because I'm going to be doing a lot of serious catching up on long term homework I blew off to write this.**

People say, no matter how long ago a traumatic event happens, if it is truly scarring, it remains in your subconscious, and impacts the rest of your life. My life thus far has been pretty close to the script, except there's been more than one such event.

My mother and father had a one sided marriage. My mother was impossibly beautiful, so my father adored her but she felt no such passions for him. The marriage was an arranged one—as is inevitable between strong clans—for political reasons, to strengthen the prestige and influence of both houses. Normally, our clan head can't marry a family from outside Konoha but my father was not clan head at the time. As he the second born of three brothers and the first born twin, he avoided the cursed seal, he was expected to stay on in the main house in the event of his eldest brother's death. The age old tradition of grooming an heir and keeping a spare.

Six years his junior, my mother had never even met my father till the day before their wedding. He claimed he loved her right away; it wasn't love, just lust—he spent hours making love to her by night, but discarded her by day. Still, he continued to delude himself into thinking it was love that drew him to her bed; and it was in this way that my sister Hinata was conceived.

In the years after Hinata was born, my mother, who had once been a vibrant life-loving spirit, began steadily falling into depression. Konoha was nothing like her colorful tropical home and the Hyuuga were the worst possible clan she could have married into. Her childhood had been so liberal and free but now she found herself bound by strict customs and surrounded by seemingly cold unforgiving relatives that spared her no affection. Still she continued to live for Hinata, promising herself her daughter would not grow up to be like the cold distant people around her and that someday she would take her daughter to live in her childhood home.

It was in the fourth year of my sister's life that my mother happened to meet Tsume Inuzuka. Excitable, impatient, and indifferent to what others thought, he effortlessly won my mother's friendship and she soon began returning to her former self. However, during this delicate transition, it was discovered that my father was having an affair—and with an Akimichi none the less—a far inferior clan in status and power in the eyes of the Hyuuga. Malicious gossip spread like wild fire, much of it blaming my mother for driving my father to it.

Her self confidence shot, my mother turned to Tsume for comfort; and in a bout of desperation for warmth and assurance, begged him to make her his woman. He didn't refuse her, and they were soon discovered. In time, it became apparent that my mother was pregnant again—but who was the father?

When I was born, to everyone's relief, I took on the traditional Hyuuga traits: a small swath of black fuzz for hair, pale skin, and an affinity to my mother's looks; all seemed well—until I opened my eyes. They were dark brown, like my mother's, like the Inuzuka's, unlike my father's. Every Hyuuga child received Byakugan eyes. An occurrence like mine had happened only twice before, when the partner's bloodline and chakra had been more powerful then their Hyuuga spouse. They tried to apply the explanation to my case and argued that since I was born a month premature perhaps my Byakugan hadn't had time to develop.

It wasn't a valid argument at all, the Byakugan begins to develop six weeks after conception, and my mother's family had only clan specific jutsu—not a blood line trait. Everyone in the compound knew it. Unable to handle the pressure, my mother committed suicide within the next few days. They refused to burry her on Hyuuga grounds, citing suicide as a shameful end they wouldn't taint their graveyard with, but they refused to send her corpse back to her natal family. Her body was quietly taken in and buried by the Inuzukas. They had known about the affair immediately by smell but had said nothing, they considered her marriage to my father basically state sanctioned rape and thought of her as one of their own. (Tsume was buried next to her years later after dying from a mission related wound.)

Two weeks later, the Akimichi woman gave birth to her child, and they knew without looking that it would have white eyes. The Hyuuga bloodline trait was guaranteed since the Akimichi had none of their own. Out of more love for his blood child and concern over what would happen to the clan than any compassion for me or my dead mother's memory, my father had the child kidnapped from the hospital. That very night in the midst of a spring storm, illegal medics carved out and transplanted our eyes. The child was returned before it could be missed and it was accepted as a legitimate Akimichi when it opened its eyes, the woman never to go through what my mother had.

Having essentially made me Hyuuga, the Elders didn't worry about the public repercussions of my existence any longer and I was finally registered with the Population and Citizenship Bureau. The official cover story was that our entire clan had been in mourning over the death of my mother who had passed away during child-birthing, and it was the same story I grew up believing my entire life. Too fraught with grief, my "father" couldn't bring himself to take me to the Bureau for fingerprinting and register me.

I woke up suddenly to the soft splashing of water dripping off leaves in my face but that wasn't why I'd awaken. My body tensed and I inspected the surrounding area apprehensively. I had thought I would be able to go a few days before having any trouble, but a substantial chakra signature was advancing at unprecedented speeds from the northeast—Akatsuki territory.

**Author Note: As always, if you want more plz review. Writing this story is pretty hard for me to fit in with everything else, and it would be nice to know my efforts are appreciated. Thank you.**


	4. Encounter

The rain continued to pour down on me but I paid no attention and didn't pry the wet hair from my face. I activated Byakugan and found the chakra's source not fifty miles from where I stood; Hoshigake Kisame and Uchiha Itachi. My body filled with cold dread.

There was no point in running, I wasn't fast enough and they were covering sections of the distance using body flicker jutsu in an unpredictable pattern. The furthest I could run before they caught up would be only forty-three miles tops. They would catch up soon enough; I would be tired and they would have a clear shot at my back. If it was only Kisame I could have won, maybe, I might have killed him on his own if I acted fast enough and with enough luck because I had been preparing to track him for sometime but he was with Itachi. I was out numbered and out matched. At the very best, if Itachi was alone and drained of significant chakra I could manage to get away, I had done it once when I had first become one of the twelve guards of the Fire Country, a post I resigned to be ANBU captain.

It was after the capture and extraction of the first tailed beast from Gaara. I was rushing to meet ANBU at the battle scene for investigation and Itachi was drained of more than a third his chakra from the extraction ceremony. For a moment I almost thought of hiding when I saw him, but obviously that would have been pointless. He was in a small clearing near the edge of the forest and I was sprinting through the trees overhead. His chakra signature had been suppressed so well I hadn't caught it when I scanned the area for a threat; but he had seen my signature coming and he immediately engaged me when I was in range. We went through bouts of genjutsus and ninjutsus, his more sophisticated than mine, but in the end I got away.

He could have destroyed me then, but he didn't pursue me when I broke away and for everyday after that encounter the thought echoed in my mind that he let me live.

I couldn't stand it.

The thought that I lived because someone else willed it on a whim, that galled me, and it pushed me to become a person who was strong enough to kill her clan.

There were often times in my life, before leaving for a mission, when I asked myself what I would do if I had to confront a member of Akatsuki and it came down to this. Even though they were all S-class there were clearly differences in their ability and there were some who I would be able to fight by myself and some I would be slaughtered by. Regardless of what techniques they used some members just wouldn't be able to affect me; but I absolutely could not, on pain of death or capture and subsequent torture, afford to engage some of them for more than two minutes if I was alone. Itachi Uchiha was one of these people; the others were Tobi, Zetsu, and Zero, the Anbu codename for the leader. There was another one, the one with the character for Bayoko on his ring but he was yet to be identified.

They were drawing closer now, twenty-nine miles. All I could hope for was that they would pass me by. I closed my eyes and sat back against the tree but before I could finish my genjutsu and sink into it someone—Itachi—was already behind me. He held a kunai to my neck and turned my head so I would look at him, into his crimson eyes, the tomoe were already spinning. "No," I whispered defiantly, my own blade was already at his neck. The clone he was holding disappeared and the veins around my eyes surfaced as I activated Byakugan. In the same instant he reached Mangekyo.

He turned to face me then dispersed into the wind--a genjutsu. He reappeared in the air a few yards away amid a flock of crows that transformed into his cloak. He landed on a branch and turned to stare straight at the tree my real body was encased in. I was already within the bounds of his genjutsu and he had discovered mine.

"Come out," he said simply, and he waited as my body slowly emerged from the wood with my eyes closed and my arms crossed across my chest, as if I had come out from a sarcophagus, the veins by my eyes still active. He didn't say a word but I could see the comment in his eyes. He knew it would be harder to manipulate genjutsu if he couldn't make eye contact with me and he wouldn't be able to use Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu which both required him to see his opponents pupils and hypnotize them. I didn't say anything. My arms unfolded and twin kunai slid into my hands from their resting places beneath my arm plates. He vanished where he stood again, this time not due to genjutsu but because he was moving faster than I could track. I felt my hair blowing in the wake of his movements.

I could see everything clearly, but he couldn't see my eyes…and that was the only chance I had to survive.

**Xxx**

**Author Note: thanks so much for waiting, sorry it took so long but I finally have time since school is over now. Hope you enjoyed it. Please review.**


	5. Malicious or Benign

I tensed, as my ears picked out the soft whistle of wind; a slew of kunai flew at me from all directions, twelve of them real, seventy of them genjutsu. I knocked the real ones out of the air with clawed hands and heightened speed, then moved just in time to avoid a blow to my shoulder and catch a cut on my wrist. The slit turned red and the sent of blood and poison exploded into the air—I applied healing chakra to it immediately and sucked out the poison. Thank Kami for my Inuzuka blood, if I hadn't used my Feral Wolf jutsu I definitely would have died by now. It had been twelve minutes; a length of time unheard of for a serious engagement. One on one battles were decided within six minutes or less and this one was long overdue.

I didn't bother to stifle a gasp of pain as Itachi's sword made contact just above my waist, the dull flat edge, followed with a hard blow by the hilt. You would have never guessed such small movements could yield so much force.

A rib had cracked, or a rib _at least_, I was too numb with pain to tell if it was one or two. The bone had splintered and punctured my skin. A red flower blossomed on my side as blood spread and soaked through my clothes. I fed chakra into the wound to reduce the pain and numb it, but knew I couldn't afford to split my concentration to heal it. This sort of medical repair was too advanced to do while distracted, even the Sannin Tsunade took five minutes to restore fully broken bones. I hesitated and immediately hated myself for it; it put me solely on the defensive even though I couldn't afford it, and I was reduced to blocking and dodging, unable to attack.

I followed him closely, searching for an opening while keeping his sword's killing edge away. It was impossible to land a blow, he moved so fast he was everywhere around me at once. Then, remarkably—I connected and struck deep on his triceps, and landed a shallow cut on his leg. He leapt back but moved as if I'd never touched him, graceful as a dragonfly. I was fighting a loosing battle, the only assurance I might live was the hint of foreign blood I smelled scattered in the air mixed with my poison, and that was hardly any assurance at all.

A barrage of flaming spheres flew towards me all of them concealing poison kunai--I raised a wall of earth just in time and braced myself as the burning globes made impact and almost seared through, then summoned a thicker wall in anticipation of another wave of attack. I scanned the forest by smell, and with my Byakugan; Itachi's scent was all around me, and he was moving to fast for me to get a lock on him. There was no way I would be able to land a ninjutsu attack on him. I'd have to spread my target out and aim for larger area.

I scanned the surroundings again; the only other person in the woods for miles was Kisame. My chakra reserves were waning; I had used most of my chakra up minutes before. Regardless, I bit my thumb and drew blood, then smeared it in a streak down my left arm. The chakra seal on my forearm flared to life and I slammed my hand into the ground, sending black runic symbols racing across the ground. If I summoned, Itachi would no doubt manipulate the creature and have it turn on me in minutes, it would be worse than if I'd never summoned at all. Ink continued racing out in all directions, spreading over everything. Trees, rocks, shrubs, the ink seal was all encompassing.

Instead of producing an ordinary summon, I would call its master's power.

The ink finally came to a stop, and I formed a single hand seal—inu. The ink on the ground glowed for a moment; I slammed my hand into the center of the seal and screamed as chakra gates opened against my body's will. Rivers of raw chakra tore through me with rabid intensity, almost searing my chakra network. An impossible amount of power spilled over me and poured into the seal—then, the entire landscape detonated!

Everything for a five mile radius was engulfed in an explosion of heat and flame. Cracks opened up in the earth and spewed out steam, and wind with enough pressure to kill on contact. The force of chakra increased, and so did my pain, sending metal skewers erupting from the ground. It was a jutsu powerful enough to take out Konoha, permanently. A mixture of all the elements only the bijuu master of inu summons could produce.

After what seemed like ages, the blast ended and the air began to clear. Chakra slowly seeped out of me and back to its source. The ink seal soaked into the earth and disappeared. My body felt horribly seared from the inside and weak, I struggled to stay standing, gasping for breath. Enormous flames continued burning and scorching steam escaped the earth from seemingly bottom less vents—holes from which some metal spears still jutted out. The woodland literally looked like hell, the entire forest was charred black, and anything that held life before was dead or dying. Trees were blasted to smoldering stumps and splinters with metal javelins protruding, any smaller plant life had been reduced to burned shadows. The suffocating smoke was lifting slowly.

I collapsed on my knees, fighting for breath and coughing blood; my entire being was racked with exhaustion and pain. I must have kneeled there for ages before I forced myself to get up again. As the smoke began defusing, I saw single figure slowly stand up, and begin limping towards me. My breath became faster and more erratic. _No! Impossible, how could he possibly still be standing? _I had summoned the power of a bijuu, no one should have been standing.

I had no energy left and only one jutsu I hadn't called on. Six chakra gates had just opened and closed involuntarily. I wasn't stupid enough to think I could open them again so soon and live. I would have to convert life force to chakra.

In the seconds I had before he drew any nearer I forced myself to make the seal that calls the gate of the death god. It opened much too slowly for the direness of my situation. A hand reached forth from the gate. I spoke in a labored whisper. "I sacrifice a day of my life in exchange for chakra." I needed much, much more, but in my life I had made the exchange twice already, and I didn't know how much time I had left. How pointless it would be to live through today only to die tomorrow. The hand reached into my mouth and I convulsed as it drew life out of me. As the gate closed, chakra welled up within me. A fifth of my chakra was restored, but I still had to worry, my body was reaching its limit, it was still weak from the summoning, and opening the gates—not to mention all the damage from Itachi.

I raked my hand across the space in front of me and drew the air into a thin and deadly blade then repeated the process with my other hand. I made an army shadow clones and charged at Itachi. His image dispersed in the wind then surrounded me with his own clones. Clouds of smoke erupted left and right as we slashed through each others bunshin wildly till we found each others true copies. I pushed chakra to my limbs for a burst of speed. My blades were doing their damage, they were intangible to wood and metal but perfectly solid to flesh and bone. I could cut past his guard but I paid for it with weakness in my own defenses.

His Sharingan read the jutsu, but he couldn't copy the technique, it was born exclusively to my mother's line. I pushed all remaining chakra to my limbs for speed and forced my body to keep going and never concede to pain. Slowly, his cloak was cut to ribbons and his porcelain skin became colored with red lines, until finally he slowed enough from blood loss so I could stab him cleanly. He doubled over, and collapsed onto me. His blood spilled on my thighs and the dead weight of his body slumped against me.

I fought it, but my lack of chakra dispelled the jutsu. I pushed Itachi off me. Then turned in the direction of Kisame; I was sure he would step in and kill me now. I had been so worried earlier that he might step in and I would have to fight them both, but even now he seemed perfectly content to standby and look on. My face portrayed my confusion and he smiled in reply. In seconds the body on the ground before me disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Itachi appeared at my side and there was a burst of pain at the back of my neck as I stabbed him with a kunai simultaneously. My hand slid weakly down his side, carving a long shallow cut as I went limp and the world began fading into black.

The last things I saw were those beautiful lethal red eyes. "You've improved 'Konoha no Sayuri.'" Then to Kisame "Tell leader I killed her. I'm going back to the north complex." His words were expressionless, but I didn't sense any killing intent. I wasn't dead yet, and for the second time in my life…I didn't know why.

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**Author Note: Sorry it took me so long to this up, I've been all over the place this summer in the most literal sense. I hoped you liked it, plz review if you want more.**


	6. Uncertainty

When I woke up I was laying on a pallet in a dark stone room. The air smelled damp and stale and there was water dipping from small stalactites over head. The only light came from a weak candle flickering by my pallet. I was bandaged—and surprisingly—unbound by rope or wire. I quickly found out why as I tried to sit up. Pain like invisible senbon needles skewered me at my wounds. It was quite clear that I wouldn't be able to sit up for days, much less stand or try to run away.

As I fell back on to the crude bed I noticed Itachi sitting in the corner of the room, the picture of health as far as I could see, with no damage at all. He had been toying with me. I might have glared if I had the energy but my vision was fuzzy and his face was obscured in shadow. The effort of staring made me dizzy. I knew that feeling, I wouldn't be able to use my Byakugan anytime soon.

A true born Hyuuga usually doesn't ever experience Byakugan fatigue but it has happened to me, after especially hard fights or missions, ever since I was little. It's because the eyes were forced into me instead of being born in me. Like any organ transplant, it never works as seamlessly as if it were your own, no matter how long you've had for the transplant to integrate with your body some little flaws are inevitable. I don't have any real complaints though, my eyes have served me as well as a native user, they were as good as any and better than most. My field of vision is further and more complete than almost every Hyuuga I knew. My eyes felt especially tender and raw at the moment though, I never had this level of backlash before.

I knew that Itachi was one of the five Akatsuki I wouldn't last two minutes against. The fact that our fight had dragged on should have been a clue I was out classed. I should have run or surrendered instead of insulting him by trying to hide in a genjutsu. It probably made me seem haughty that I thought I could get away from the most renowned genjutsu user on the continent with my pathetic rendition. But now I was a hostage. If they had intel on what Konoha thought of me they might be holding me for a prisoner exchange, but they would find out soon enough I was a missing nin, and then my life would be worthless.

Itachi spoke, "Since you are Anbu you must have seen the files on my clan."

I nodded.

"Then you must understand how I attained Mangekyo."

"You killed the person closest to you," I replied.

He made the slightest of movements and for a moment he looked pained. I almost reached out to touch him but I caught myself just in time.

He shifted a little and continued "What you may not know is that I have only the basic Mangekyo." He paused to let the sentence sink in. It never occurred to me that there were levels of power following Mangekyo, a Sharingan state stronger than what he had arrived at. I shivered.

"If someone took my eyes for themselves," he continued "my Mangekyo would evolve to be stronger in them. Mangekyo grows in power each time it's transferred."

He stepped out of the shadows and I started being able to make out the contours of his face. He had his eyes closed, and there were light scratches around them.

"Someone took your Mangekyo?" But he clearly had it during our fight, so someone had to have taken it afterwards, or maybe he hadn't even had it when he fought me and it had all been an illusion.

His smirk cut off my wild train of thought. "No." He stepped into the light and opened his eyes. I gasped. They weren't his eyes, they were mine. I saw my face reflected in them and knew the coal black eyes I had were his.


	7. Conversations

I was stunned. "Then, why…" my voice trailed off as I began to figure it out. "It strengthens every time it's transferred you said?" Itachi nodded. I understood now. He was keeping me alive to use as a catalyst. He had transferred his eyes into me to strengthen them and soon he would harvest them and take them back when they had increased in power. I was going to ask why he hadn't done this sooner with other victims when I caught myself. The Sharingan was his greatest weapon and he could not afford to be a blind sitting duck during the ripening stage of the transfer before he took them back. He needed eyes comparable in potential power to use while waiting for his own, so he had waited for mine.

"That's why you didn't kill me back then," I realized, "in the forest on my way back from Suna, you were waiting for me to improve. Waiting for my eyes to strengthen so it would be a safer substitute for your own while you were waiting for yours to ripen in a transplant."

He smiled, almost warmly but for the eerie hint that showed in his now white eyes. "Catching on quickly Konoha no Sayuri."

"How many times have you done this while I was asleep?" I asked.

"Twice," he answered.

Twice—that was terrifying. That would mean this would be the third transfer for this set of eyes, since they had originally belonged to the cousin he killed. No one needed that much power. If what he had when I fought him was just a basic Mangekyo I shuddered to think what this set of eyes could do once they were back in his head. Just what was he preparing for and how many more transfers would be planning? In the state my body was in I would need at least another two weeks of recovery time—time in which I would be helpless. I gritted my teeth.

"How long have I been asleep?" I was afraid of the answer.

"About three weeks, maybe a month—I haven't been up to see the sun."

That made sense, eyes were sensitive to light after any operation and definitely one of this scale. The complex we were in was probably underground based on what he had said, similar to a set up like Orochimaru's western base had been. Subterranean complexes were much harder to escape from in my experience. This would be difficult. I couldn't move for two weeks so I wouldn't be able to explore and look for a way out, and I wouldn't have my own eyes to help me. I could possibly sniff for the scent of water trickling in if it was raining, that would help me find an opening to the surface, but that would be ridiculously inefficient unless I was in Feral Wolf mode—and I definitely could not pull that off discretely or in my current state of depletion. Itachi really could just take his eyes back and slaughter me after he was done.

He would probably put my eyes in a jar on a shelf and save them for later in case he ever found a way for the transplants to work without a second person. Great, I had two weeks to live as an invalid in a cave, underground, with nothing but shadows and walls to stare at. I had eyes that I couldn't use to do anything but see normally since I didn't have the energy, chakra or knowledge to use a Sharingan. I rolled my eyes—his eyes—whatever!

He spoke, startling me. "Why did you do it?" he asked.

"Do what?"I asked dumbly before concluding the obvious.

"Kill your family," he said coldly.

I understood the undertone, I had read his file. He had been ordered to kill his family but he didn't want to, and on all accounts he had loved them. I sighed a little annoyed and replied without looking at him. "I am a Hyuuga, I've never had a family—only obligations to uphold to people I never liked or respected." No, that wasn't entirely true. "There was only one person I considered family, and they killed him—tortured him to death, so I killed them." It hurt to say those last words but I bitterly eked them out. I hated reminding myself Neji was dead. "You should understand," I continued spitefully, "he was, essentially, my older brother."

A short silence followed on his part as I turned away from him to lie on my left. "I'm sorry," he said. I heard him step forward and I felt a small plop as something dropped on to my bed. He left. I turned around to see Neji's headband lying beside me. I hadn't expected to get that back. "It seemed important to you," I heard him say from a little outside the door.


End file.
